Fish and Wildlife Office found lacking

CARLSBAD -- A U.S. General Accounting Office audit released to
the public Thursday accuses the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's
Carlsbad office of poor management, sloppy record-keeping,
unacceptable delays and lack of response to customer
complaints.

"It is difficult to conceive how the Carlsbad office can meet
their responsibilities to the public and the intent of the
Endangered Species Act," U.S. Rep. Ken Calvert said in a written
statement about the GAO report.

The Carlsbad U.S. Fish and Wildlife office covers most of
Southern California, including San Diego, Imperial, Orange and
Riverside counties, plus the urban areas of Los Angeles and San
Bernardino counties.

The report pointed to understaffing, heavy workloads and
employee turnover as ongoing problems at the office, described by
the report as having "one of the heaviest endangered species
workloads in the United States."

"Confusing, vague and uncertain" policies related to the
Endangered Species Act were what prompted Calvert, who represents
Southwest County, and U.S. Rep. James Hansen, R-Utah, to request
the audit from the GAO in May 1999. The GAO is the independent,
nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress charged with evaluating
federal programs and activities. The report was released to
Congress in January.

Carlsbad Field Supervisor Ken Berg said Thursday that he wasn't
surprised by the GAO's report, noting that his staff worked closely
with the GAO during the audit. He said that instead of being upset
by the GAO's conclusions, he was pleased that an objective agency
had voiced the same concerns his office has repeatedly raised.

Berg said the Carlsbad office is a microcosm for many of the
problems the federal agency faces in the United States. He said
staffing requests have repeatedly gone unfunded, forcing current
staff to bear too large a workload.

"In order to keep up with the pace of new projects, I admit
staff did not always take the time to document work on projects
already submitted," he said.

But he defended the actual work done as following correct
scientific procedure, and said the GAO found no evidence to the
contrary.

"We work hard to make decisions that are scientifically credible
and legally defensible, and the GAO corroborated that," Berg
said.

The report concluded that workers at the office used an
ineffective manual procedure for record-keeping and that records
were incomplete or inaccurate 75 percent of the time.

The report said the office had no procedure to track habitat
management plans but relied on the wildlife services' national
database, described by the GAO in its report as incomplete and
inaccurate.

Fish and Wildlife timelines for formal consultations on
development plans were exceeded 35 percent of the time and 45
percent of the time for completion of habitat management plans,
according to the report.

The report states that although some of those plans may have had
agreed-upon extensions, it was difficult to know because of
inadequate record-keeping. Dates of meetings between applicants and
Carlsbad office officials as well as actions taken during the
meetings were not recorded in some cases.